Public TV political ads to get rehearing

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

Updated 10:50 pm, Wednesday, November 21, 2012

A federal appeals court in San Francisco agreed Wednesday to reconsider a ruling that would allow public television and radio stations to carry political campaign commercials.

A panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled 2-1 in April that a 1981 federal law prohibiting noncommercial public stations from running political ads or taking positions on public issues violates freedom of speech.

On Wednesday, the full court said a majority of its judges had voted to grant the federal government's request for a rehearing before an 11-judge panel. The hearing is scheduled next March in San Francisco.

President Trump addresses nation after mass shooting at Florida SchoolWhite House

The suit was filed by the Minority Television Project, operator of KMTP-TV in San Francisco. It challenged both the ban on campaign ads and another part of the 1981 law barring public stations from running ads for commercial products.

The appeals court upheld the ban on conventional ads, saying Congress had evidence that advertising dollars would pressure stations into changing their programming to appeal to a mass audience.

But the court found no such justification for the prohibition on political and public-issue messages. Under the current rules, the panel majority said, a public station is permitted to carry promotional messages for the services of nonprofit organizations, like Planned Parenthood, but is prohibited from running an ad stating the nonprofit's views on a proposed law or candidate.

"That is a crucial content-based distinction - and there is no evidence at all to support it," said Judge Carlos Bea in the majority opinion.

The Justice Department's request for a rehearing was supported by the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio. They told the court that the ruling, if upheld, would subject public stations to "unprecedented commercial pressure to alter the distinctive nature and content" of their programming.